You may be a fan of the Star Wars films, but are you a follower? Moves are afoot to have the fictitious Jedi philosophy the movies espouse recognised as a proper religion.

If 8,000 New Zealanders have heeded an e-mail asking them to declare Jedi as their faith on this week's census forms, then Star Wars will have spawned an officially recognised religion.

"Miss Piggy my other job is"

Kiwis who went along with the jape may have to explain themselves to the authorities since it is an offence to enter false information in the census.

But then surely no one can seriously adhere to the "ancient" Jedi creed so keenly observed by Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker in the blockbuster series of films.

Wouldn't you have to be a crackpot to put any faith in "The Force" as explained by Yoda - a wrinkled puppet whose voice was supplied by Frank Oz, the vocal talent also behind Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear?

Creed is good

Perhaps not. Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola suggested George Lucas should turn the Jedi philosophy he invented for Star Wars into a fully-fledged religious movement to mobilise the global wave of interest the films had sparked.

"Would you like to read some of our literature?"

"I remember [Francis] saying: 'With religion, you really have power.' I told him: 'Forget it. I don't have any interest in power,'" the multi-millionaire Lucas has said.

Some moviegoers still regret the director's lack of ecclesiastical ambition.

''If George Lucas turned this into a religion, it would blow L Ron Hubbard's Dianetics [a central part of the sci-fi writer's controversial belief, Scientology] out of the window,'' Star Wars fan Won Park told the New York Times (while dressed as Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn).

Other fans of The Force have taken it upon themselves to distil it into a religious cannon, taking the film scripts as their scripture.

The dialogue! It's all frightful rubbish!

Sir Alec Guinness, Obi-Wan Kenobi

The Jedi Creed is a website operated by fans revelling in such assumed names as Jedi Relan Volkum and Lord Scorn. It addresses such theological questions as "Should Jedi work for government?" and "Vomiting: Disgusting, or Lesson on Life?"

The central tenet of the creed is that The Force is "an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together", as Sir Alec Guinness opined in Star Wars (1977).

The Jedi Creed site suggests by using The Force (and doing some sit-ups), followers can reach their full potential. "Remember," it says, "our human brain only uses about 15 to 20% of its capability."

"Couldn't you get a pew closer the pulpit?"

Star Wars fans have a reputation for being highly fanatical, says Kenny Baker, the man who filled the shell of R2-D2 in the films.

Baker, who now travels the world to attend Star Wars conventions, knows first-hand the lengths fans will go to to indulge their fascination.

"They're real eccentrics. They do things like ask you to sign their arm and then go off and get your signature tattooed," he says. "They are on a different planet. Definitely not of this world."